Calliope
by Out of Custody
Summary: What is the saying? Out of the frying pan and into the fire? Derek realizes that just because she's out of the Big Bad's clutches doesn't mean she's safe. Part 2 of the Mnemosyne-series / Girl!Stiles [Rating for safety because... a lot of language and subtext...]
1. Chapter 1

Isaac did not hesitate to pull the scantily clothed, young woman into a ferocious hug – one that he knew would bruise later. In the heels she wore, her feet didn't even leave the ground and as her arms eased their way around the neck of the young werewolf, she loosened the grip on the bat, which succumbed to gravity with a clang.

He _heard_ the relief, smelt the victory in the air and allowed his shoulders to drop – ever so slightly, when Lydia, in a whirlwind of strawberry-blonde locks, brushed past him and joined the hug barring any hesitation.

Isaac was crying and Allison, lowering her bow, put her hand to his shoulder in a silent gesture of comfort – Derek dared to bet that Stiles' embrace, right now, was the best thing that Lahey had ever felt.

The blood-splattered arms of the young woman moved, including the other female in the group-hug, pulling the three of them closer together, swaying gently from side to side (like a mother lulling her child to sleep – an instinctual move).

Scott's breathing shivered for a moment, but he didn't dare close in on them – neither did Derek.

"Can you step down from Alpha?"

His head whipped so abruptly to the spot his leader was still rooted to, his eyes glistening and his chest heaving in a valiant effort to keep in whatever it was that wanted to burst out, that he was relatively certain he'd torn something that would have to heal. Derek's mouth opened – closed – opened again.

He exhaled harshly, focused, blinking then as he turned to step towards the younger man. "Never heard of it." He answered as softly as the question had been asked – so Isaac wouldn't hear it over the sound of the person he was currently almost ensconced in (Derek was _not_ jealous). "Doesn't mean it can't be done though; considering that's what Seconds are for."

Scott's eyes met his then, bright red and still wet. "It's a good thing you're experienced in this kind of thing, isn't it, Alpha?" The red bled away to a mellow golden. "Because, honestly, if I ever have to ask the question 'What is a Stiles?' _ever_ again, I swear to all that is holy…"

Isaac had pulled Allison into the group hug; Stiles lips parted into a large smile, spiting her relieved tears.

Barely had they made it to the loft that Lydia and Isaac had pulled Stiles towards the large bed that was Derek's, didn't even bother asking, before they put her under the blanket and huddled close to her again.

Derek didn't bother with trying to tell his people that the upstairs was fully furnished with mattresses and rooms for each and every one of them. They hadn't let Stiles out of their middle from the moment they'd stepped out of The Flittering Fellow once she'd been borrowed a shirt, track-shoes and a pair of decent trousers – to any and all onlookers they'd probably looked like a congregation of Yakuza; Stiles their ragged-looking Boss amidst them.

So even in his new-old position as Alpha, he didn't think of getting them to move elsewhere, out of his bed; he didn't mind that his pack puppy-piled on and under his covers, moving as physically close as possible to the warm body of Stiles Stilinski, cocooning her in warmth and safety.

* * *

If this were any, random, teenager's life – maybe even a crappy show on television – he'd have expected rainbows and butterflies from the next day on; like that: snap your fingers, make the sun rise and then hop over green, flowery meadows with hearts on your cheeks and glitter in your hair.

That would have been his ideal.

Now he would not describe himself as unrealistic, which was why he knew that it wouldn't go down _precisely_ like this. There were consequences, repercussions; he'd just hoped that she'd be spared the worst of them.

But it became very clear to him that, for one, Stiles Stilinski didn't dare sleep.

Safe for the first night, on which she'd been too emotionally and physically drained than to do anything else but flop down and enjoy the puppy-pile that accumulated around her.

She was, he was happy to see, the same, limb-flailing, opinionated, loud-mouthed, sarcastic, witty and strategic person she'd been before he'd left – that yes, and Lord Above he was indescribably glad to find her thusly. (He did not know whose throat he'd have ripped out if she'd been changed more drastically than she had by _that_ place.)

Cora had confided in him that more often than not she herself was woken by Stiles screaming her throat raw until she woke, the sound-proofed walls swallowing most of the tumult – she didn't say what her nightmares were about, didn't talk about them at all. Stiles, while outwardly functioning at a level of unexpected perfection, simply wallowed away in sleeplessness.

" _That_ ", he commented, placing a cup of hot chocolate in her fingers as he joined her on the meagre balcony, "has to be so many levels of unhealthy."

The spark sighed, clutching at the too hot ceramic in her palms, didn't dare to let up and Derek prepared himself for a long night of heavy silence. They'd had many of them lately given the fact that he knew something was up, but wouldn't push, whereas she would stubbornly sit in some dark corner of the loft, ignoring the fact that she didn't dare to close her eyes for longer than two hours a night.

"He made us dream."

Her raw voice surprised him – he wished it didn't show – into turning his head towards her, inspecting the bony fingers. She'd quickly let up on the illusion on her body and he was almost ashamed to say that, yes, his marks were still visible, but drowning in the plethora of markings on her brittle skin.

She didn't look up at him, and he didn't push.

"Night after night I swear we walked through collective dream-scapes, jungles of darkness, pits of snakes and scorpions, we drowned in oil, we burned on fire and it all…", her breath hitched, her heart ran away from her, "it all felt so _real_."

Her dry throat constricted to swallow around something. "And he'd be there, every night, offering us a hand, offering to help us, if we just… _took his hand_."

The salty taste on his palate gave away her clandestine tears, hidden behind her arm. "And everyone that did…", an octave higher, hiccups; Derek bit his lower lip, his wolf growled at the obvious violation of **_his person_**. "…they weren't the same afterwards." She sniffled, unashamed by now, uncaring. "They were… empty, didn't talk, didn't _see_."

He was surprised when she threw her head back, staring into his eyes, baring her vulnerability – brandishing it like a sword – to his red eyes. "Derek, I swear, they weren't people anymore. And I couldn't… couldn't bring myself to… but I didn't want to dream either… and if I stayed awake, he never knew…"

As he pulled her into a hug, she didn't fight it, didn't fight the tears either – and Derek naively hoped, again, that this would be the worst of it.

* * *

When Sherriff John Stilinski opened the door to his office thirty-three days after his daughter had gone missing, he was not expecting the leather-clad arms of one Derek Hale encasing a shaking figure on his couch, carefully rocking them side-to-side.

"So tell me two things you can smell?" the younger man coaxed, his eyes sliding over to where the Sherriff had just entered and if his years spent interrogating the delinquents of Beacon Hills wouldn't have taught him to read the human body like a book he'd have missed the cautiousness in them, the plea for temporary silence.

So he kept quiet and waited. "Leather." The answering voice was shaky within the cradle of his arms and John knew -he _knew_ that voice; it was such a familiar treble that he didn't even bother to try hiding the shakiness of his knees, favouring a chair to ruining his old joints by hitting the linoleum floor.

"And what is one thing you can taste?" he heard the younger man say, their eyes meeting over the still quivering shoulders of the woman pressed into him.

John didn't need to see the face, although he couldn't help but want to, to know who it was – to know that all injustices this man could ever have committed had just erased themselves from his own mind. He was also very positive that his knees buckled.

"S-Salt." -came the shaking, but ultimately stubborn, voice from the circle of his arms, still moving, still calming her down. John sat, eyes still glued to the miracle in front of him.

He knew the statistics and, with supernatural creatures storming Beacon Hills – and County – like it was the last rage, they hadn't changed for the better and he'd prepared, unwillingly, for the fact that his daughter would be gone.

"You ready now?" Derek's voice tore him out of his disbelief, stroking over the back of the hunched person. "It's alright to take your time…"

The Sherriff swallowed, eyes glued to the mop of hair, longer than when he'd last seen her, but undoubtedly hers – so much like her mother's. In the privacy of his mind there was a lot of begging going on, mostly for things he'd never repeat in public but would also not deny if being called out on.

"He's seen me… hasn't he?"

The tug at his lips was involuntary, but relieved, hearing the dour tone of his daughter – her voice the same it had always been: bent but never broken.

"I think your father saw you in many positions, this is probably not the most embarrassing one."

And he was relieved to see that Derek Hale managed to coax his Stiles out of the quivering mass of panic attack that had previously resided – very chastely – in his lap, gangly feet to one side, most of the upper-body hidden in the lapels of his jacket; out of which she now emerged.

"Hi Dad."

There were tears. (And a lot of very angry, and also very honest, threats towards whoever had done this to her – to them; to him)

* * *

That Stiles stayed where the pack could see her and where she could see the pack on a regular – day to day – basis, was not surprising; what had originally been was her father's quick agreement to this, but Derek was not one to look a gifted horse into its' mouth (especially not when it was about Stiles).

Therefor the last two weeks of summer holidays were spent by thoroughly cleaning up the loft and making it as liveable as possible for the pack that, surprisingly-not-surprisingly, too prepared to stay for as long and as often as possible.

Over the day he'd be busy strolling through thrift-stores and yard-sales, collecting old but still functional furniture, transporting it to the factory and then playing the utterly manly game of 'I can carry it farther than you' with Scott and Isaac. In the evening, if none of the parents came over to see their kids and bringing a ton of food with them, either Stiles or Derek would whip up something edible and they'd spend the night philosophizing about anything and everything.

And every night, without fault, would they pile up around Stiles, making certain that she was comfortable in the middle of her bed – the only place she could sleep, apparently – and cocooning her left and right.

It had started with it 'only' being Lydia and Isaac; both still a little too shaken by Stiles' disappearance than to take her presence for granted, and had quickly expanded to Scott and Allison and had even gone as far as to include Kira, who, while taken and very serious with Cora, had been adopted by the pack – and therefor Stiles – without the slightest hiccup.

"You realize that they treat her like the pack mother." Cora appraised him one evening.

He'd done his last rounds through the loft, made sure everything was closed and safe, and, as usual, ended up in front of the open door to Stiles' room – taking in the pack on her bed.

"They treat her as pack." He corrected quietly but stubbornly (Lord forgive if his sister ever found out…). "She has troubles at night if she falls asleep alone; so they give their best to remedy that."

His sister quirked her brow in a questing motion, coming to stand next to him, arms crossed in front of her. "I always wonder about that." She admitted. "I mean she's human… it's not like it's a scent thing…"

Derek shook his head involuntarily but instinctually lecturing her: "She's a spark. Being without pack is almost as bad, if not worse, for her as it is for any pack-member – very often the stability of the pack is everything that anchors the spark." He turned to her. "Remember? Dad was the Hale Spark – he shared Mom's acute feeling for anything happening in and to the pack."

Cora didn't respond, but he knew that she did remember – the relationship of their parents had, after all, been the stuff of legends and fables; a princess and her prince, a queen and her king. No matter where Talia was, their father knew what was happening, what she was feeling – it surpassed _mateship_ , it was something inexplicable; especially since it had never before happened.

Their mother had broken quite a few rules by taking the emissary of another pack as her husband and mate – but that had not necessarily meant that it was a bad thing, doomed to fail. In all actuality, the political move itself had cleared at least three generations of pack-feud off the table in one fell swoop; and while, so she'd told her children, she hadn't originally thought about love as a factor in this orchestration, it had found a way to them.

"You are awfully… insightful… about her needs…" His sister finally whispered, her eyes meaningful and mischievous when he found them – there was a meaning to her words that she didn't dare put out there in front of her Alpha, but he caught it all the same.

And while, _yes_ , that was one reason there was also the fact that: "You forget that I was raised to be Laura's Second," he deflected. "-and as such educated to be her advisor – versed in all things diplomatic; a glorified library-see-ambassador."

She did not take his bait, and he probably wouldn't have either in her place, but for now that was all he could say – for now that was what he had to tell himself.

(Stiles was not there yet, despite – or because of – everything that had happened, and he'd waited for years by now; he could wait a little more.)

When Cora started to join the puppy-pile after that, Derek did not comment.

* * *

High school started and Derek prepared for the eventuality of his pack spending less time at the loft and more time at their respective homes, expecting them to take school more seriously than the feelings of a pack-needy Alpha.

Also, Kira and Cora would be staying around indefinitely so not all of his pack would be leaving – which didn't mollify his Alpha-beast in the least. Like a shepherd it wanted to round them up, each and every single one and keep them together, keep them as safe as he could; even though he rationally knew that each and every single one of his pack-members were as safe as they could make them (Jesus H. Christ on a crutch Isaac lived with Argents – there wasn't anything safer…).

Thusly it came as a surprise when Allison and Isaac showed up the first night of school and stayed the night.

He considered it an anomaly and pegged it on Isaac with whom Derek found another, profounder, understanding on many levels – especially considering that the young man treated the bite as the gift that it was.

But the second night Scott and Stiles came over, and the third night Lydia came over with Allison, and he soon realized that every night somebody of the pack would show up without fault, making themselves known by doing their homework and maybe warming up Hot Pockets.

"Aren't they... missing out on school?" he asked Kira one evening, watching over the small pile that was Cora, Stiles and Lydia huddled as close as possible on the couch eyes glued to the television that Stiles had made him get. Kira smiled, shyly, as she tilted her head at him, waiting for the popcorn to heat.

It had been Kira's family to gobble Cora up and patch her up; and it had been the young girl herself to take over caring for his sister in a way that Hales usually did not allow to be cared for – he could see, though, how the young kitsune had managed to worm her way through the defences of his sibling. So she'd come to America with the two Hales, adamant about staying at Cora's side – come hell or high water; and her parents had grudgingly conceded.

"They're actually doing pretty well." She informed him, giving the pot on the stove a little electrical shock – Derek flinched at the unanimous ripping-popping sound of the kernels in the pot, so much louder and instantaneous than the usual pop-pop-popping he'd come to associate with the corn.

"But if you're so worried you can talk to Stiles…"

And – yeah – it figured that this had been the Spark's doing all along. She shrugged when he asked about it, producing a few sheets for him to inspect… timetables.

"You know that I know that pack is not as much a commodity as it is a necessity for wolves." She started, giving him a no-nonsense-glare, her arms busying themselves with the dirty dishes, the bruises on her body slowly disappearing, the skin healing, starting to regain its' glow. "And the parents all gave their okay – most of them are in the know either way, and while Lydia's mother isn't… well, she also doesn't really care where her daughter goes so long as the grades are right."

He wanted to ask why – but he knew why and he didn't like looking stupid, so he settled instead for giving her a hard stare, silent. However, never let it be said that Stiles Stilinski either gave up easily or even would be cowered by the heavy silence of a six foot something Alpha werewolf. There'd been times – before – when he would outright goad her into standing up to him, relishing in the crackle of power around them, relishing in the fact that someone did not fear him enough to stand up to him.

Maybe it was done unconsciously, but he realized when she stepped closer to him and away from the sink, eyes determined and arms crossed despite the suds, that he'd fallen back into that habit.

"Look I know you're as stubborn as they come, but even you can't deny that you're feeling better when they're here."

Well… he _could_ but-

"And if you don't then at least let them have it, because as far as I can tell Scott is more concentrated, Kira drops her self-esteem-issues, Cora forgets the genetic-Hale-anger –", he growled a little at this, admittedly, but the Spark shot him a decimating look and continued, counting her fingers, "Lydia feels better knowing that her people are alive, Isaac finally gets to witness a healthy family which does wonders for him and the more time Allison spends with us the less she gets the feeling like having to shoot us every time someone ends up dead in this town." The young woman challenged. "It's a win-win-situation, dude!"

He groaned. "Don't call me dude." -the retort was by now instinctual, an ingrained habit, born out of regular interaction with the young Stilinski and her inability to communicate without swear-words or overdone informality.

She did, however, never fail to make her point.

"And what's it to you?" he asked, realizing belatedly that she hadn't included herself into her tirade.

The young woman shrugged, turning to evade his eyes and instead submerging her hands back into the drawn water. "Excuse me, but have you seen my timetables?" she snarked, hiding – as usually – behind her sarcasm. "They are veritable masterpieces that I take much pride in creating."

Derek closed in, his beast catching both the change in scent and uptake in heartbeat as he cornered her against the aisle his hands coming to rest by her sides, successfully caging her in – a sheet could barely fit between his front and her back; but she didn't run.

"That's not an answer, Stiles." He crooned, leaning closer, unable to deny himself the pleasure of provoking the abrupt intake of air as he brushed his nose behind her ear and almost drowning in her spiking perfume.

Lord, but he _wanted_ …

She swallowed, but didn't answer even as he crowded closer, pelvis pushing her against the wooden panels, intimately feeling the heat she radiated, basking in the thrum of her power underneath her skin.

"I _could_ of course tell you that you feel the pack just as acutely as any other member." His voice was reduced to gravel, fighting for the last shreds of his sanity, holding on to his humanity, "I could tell you that you like it here."

"And what if I do?" she asked, breathless, body quivering in an effort to not push back into him, the dishes in her hands abandoned in favour of clawing at the surface in front of her. And her scent was enough to tell him everything, was enough to drive him crazy.

He eased up unexpectedly (unwillingly), stepped back just enough to not be glued to her any longer, but not enough to escape her immediate comfort zone and carefully raised a hand to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. "That would be enough for me."

For now…

* * *

Deaton called it a 'regression to the mean' – that things were neither always good nor always bad, but always a bit of both in order to go back to The Whole being balanced; an ebb and flow so to speak.

So Derek was waiting for it; because the last weeks had been good – incredibly so.

Stiles had kept up with her ingenious pack-timetables while, at the same time, making certain that they didn't fall behind on school-work. These days he looked back a lot to Cora's comment about the pack-mother and he realized that the pack might treat her as such because she acted accordingly.

She seconded or disagreed with his opinions first, vocally and more often than not rationally; on all-pack-nights it was usually either her or him who cooked for the lot; she was the one who chauffeured the pack-members if he wasn't available; was the go-to-person at school whereas he was the go-to-person outside of school and, altogether, filled a place in the pack hierarchy that Derek hadn't even noticed to be void until she'd stepped in.

But he appreciated it, liked and looked forward to it even – to the familiar scent of her permeating his loft while she was sprawled on the couch, spreading sheets and papers around her and all-over it in an effort to cater to her easily-diverted mind as she learned, to their late-night talks with hot chocolate when her receding but still present sleep-trauma reared its' f-ugly head again, to her body pressed to his side whenever they were watching a movie.

He felt bad thinking it even in the privacy of his mind but, when the call came about the anxiety attack, Derek had been expecting it.

"We can't move her." Isaac informed him panicked. "I swear, Derek, it's like she's glued to the ground and her heart is going wacky and-"

"Stop." -he could hear the Beta talking himself into a Panic Attack and by the sounds of it, right now he couldn't have two of his pack thusly out of commission; bad enough that it had hit Stiles, again. "Your break's over?"

"Yeah, the corridors are empty." Isaac amended. "There's something… _wrong_ about this Derek."

The Alpha swallowed, forcing his body to stay seated where he was – he would do them no favour driving to the High School like a maniac, breaking at least three laws getting there and barging in; no matter how much he desired to (no matter how much his beast howled for it).

"Can you put your phone to her ear?" He had to try talking to her, had to hope that it would be enough – it had been, after all, during the attack at the precinct, had been enough to pull her out of her nightmares; it might just be enough now.

(Her father had given him a long speech about his time in the army and their coping mechanisms for PTSD and if Derek's ability to interpret subtext hadn't waned then it just… _might_.)

There was rustling at the other end of the line before his ears picked up on the erratic breathing – Stiles' he presumed.

"Stiles." He addressed her in a calm fashion that, technically, the rapid beating of his heart should not have allowed; he was worried for god's sakes – this was his anchor goddamnit; this was his **_everything_**. She didn't answer but there was a hitch in her breathing that Derek forced himself to interpret optimistically.

"Stiles listen to me. I am here, you are fine, the pack is here, they are all around you."

As if on cue one of Isaac's whimpers broke through from the background, as if his Beta were reinforcing the words.

"I know you can feel that." He continued – this was so much harder when he couldn't tell her immediate reaction! Her breath wasn't much to go on and over the line he couldn't make out her heartbeat; and being in the unknown like this was driving him all sorts of crazy.

"Focus on that feeling, Stiles. You're a spark, you know it anchors you – **_let it_**."

* * *

 _He'd alpha-ed her_. She didn't know whether to cringe or to smirk at that; that son of a wolf had good-to-honest resorted to alpha-ing her – the smile won out. His voice was like gravel as he continued to croon into her ear.

It wasn't like she wanted to be here, but there was something about that… graffiti. That crude, unartistic scrawl on one of the bare bricks lining the hallways that had bound her to her spot before she'd realized it. Initially it had been her realization which had sent her into the panic-attack.

The inability to move while being fully conscious was – she'd say _unnerving_ but it was decidedly more than that. It was literally nerve-wracking, panic-inducing and absolutely horrifying.

She couldn't react to Isaac's whines, to Scott's questioning snuffles or even to Kira's soothing hands combing through her hair – it wasn't just physical paralysis that worried her; because while she could see the pack around her, she couldn't _feel_ it. And despite the fact that she desperately wanted to, she couldn't concentrate on it.

 _Come on, Stiles, get out of your head a little_ -it wasn't Derek's voice per se, because he was still crooning into her ear, but he'd used those precise words the last time she'd barely managed to control her racing heart into stopping a cardiac arrest. He'd counted her down through her senses but she couldn't remember in what order he'd listed them and her current levels of anxiety wouldn't allow her to go through something half-assed and-

 _Stop!_ -again, his voice, or rather a memory of it and, as if he'd commanded her, Stiles clamped her mouth and eyes shut, cutting off her air-intake.

There was a commotion around her when the pack realized that she wasn't breathing anymore and she herself could feel the oncoming dizziness as a looming threat, but, just before it took her over, she exhaled harshly, sucking in the air through her nose; calming herself.

She fixated the tag again, leering at her from the opposite of the corridor.

 _Brich Auf_

The intangible coils that had wrapped around her, tying her to a place and herding her into instable cognisance snapped away as if cut, the backlash resounding loudly in her ears but inaudible to anyone else's – Stiles tumbled to the ground, and out of consciousness.

* * *

 _Brich Auf_ : German, 'break up' as in commanding something to break

 **REVIEWS lovely people? =)**


	2. Chapter 2

His blood boiled, looking at the printed image in his hands; his daughter had explained, at length, what it was, what it did (what it had done to her) – a spell.

Derek had come with her, unwilling, as ever, to leave her side so long as he could prevent it – John wondered when, or if, the young man would ever act on the broadcasted emotions that were apparently obvious to everyone but the intended target. But then, Stiles had always been somewhat oblivious concerning all those things of good nature that would fall into her lap.

(She was very much like her father in that regard.)

And while personally she had been somewhat hesitant to talk in detail about her reaction to the supposed graffiti, the werewolf had had no such inhibitions: he'd informed the Sherriff about the incident of that afternoon while admirably ignoring the poignant glares of his daughter. John knew that she didn't want him to worry, but he was her father, her only parent, and he was in law enforcement.

"Look, I can file this as public vandalism and have my Deputies keep their eyes out for it." He soothed, hoping to alleviate both her worry and her indignance towards the young man. "We'll be able to cover it up more quickly and none of us will have to worry about The Supernatural getting stuck in the middle of the road – I honestly think that's a plus."

She'd huffed, of course, but hadn't argued.

Naturally, however, the perpetrators themselves hadn't come up; while his department dutifully scanned the town and communicated the located graffiti, they'd never had chance to find one in the making – and if he was completely frank it made him uneasy.

Because considering the fact that his daughter had, not too long ago, been targeted by a warlock and this was a spell- In his experience as a Sherriff two plus two equalled four and it really wasn't that much of a stretch; which is why he invited himself – and the rest of the inaugurated adults – to one of the pack meetings to voice his suspicion.

Surprisingly enough, he earned himself nods of agreement.

"I considered the same thing." The Martin-girl, Lydia, spoke up, fiddling with a beaded bracelet around her wrist as she chewed her lip. "When The Flittering Fellow was inspected before closure Phanes was nowhere to be found…"

Stiles groaned, plopping her head onto the backrest of the couch, dropping her forearms onto her face. "His head was bashed in." she groaned empathically. "Do you even know the kind of power it would require to return him to his former glory?"

The pack looked uneasy; his daughter lowered her arms, staring at the grey ceiling.

"There would have to be a group of them. At least three and a power source strong enough to restore a _life_." She hesitated for a moment. "And for that, the source would have to be fed life…"

"Quid Pro Quo." Allison Argent muttered; face paler than usually (if Isaac huddled closer to her side the pack acted as if it went unnoticed).

Again silence settled over the small crowd, the parents included; John took up the parole, gathering intel and putting it into action – a trait disciplined by his work.

"So there's a group of sickos that obviously want someone to be stuck permanently – or at least temporarily enough for what: capture?"

Stiles nodded. Derek sighed.

"Can we just assume that we should protect the pack to the best of our current abilities?" he suggested then, feeling the unease of the parents. "We don't know what we're up against, but as a conglomerate of supernatural creatures maybe we should-"

"It's not the supernatural creatures." Stiles interrupted, sitting up – his daughter had been struck with a sudden epiphany, he could tell; so he stopped. "Remember," she continued, "the pack was able to move freely."

At this, the youths nodded. "But I was stuck." -again: nods. Stiles continued: "Also, neither of The Supernatural who passed the graffiti on the street were as stuck as I was, as proven by Parrish."

His second, one of the patrols who'd been busy finding and eliminating the accursed graffiti, nodded hesitantly.

Derek, apparently catching up to his daughter glared at the picture in their middle. "It's not targeting Superanturals." He concluded. "It's targeting you."

Stiles hung her head. "As much as I dislike it, that would seem to be the case."

"So what?" Scott snorted, half-heartedly trying to cover up his nerves. "We lock you up and be done with it?" – Stiles shot him a look, but, unable to reach him, contended herself with watching as Cora thumped him on the back of his head.

"That might be precisely what they want." She countered. "I'd be a sitting duck. Not to forget the fact that I'd miss school for an indefinite period."

Her best friend pouted, eyes growing to heighten the effect of a full-blown McCall-puppy-look – Melissa shook her head at her son. Stiles rolled her eyes.

It was Derek who plunged into planning a security rotation around Stiles, which wasn't debated by anyone – not even Chris – and because his daughter was a little Geek they conceded on a double-helix-system for a password; he was amazed at how quickly she found a solution and came to the conclusion that she must have thought about it for a long time just in case a situation like this would come up; she'd always liked to be prepared for the oddest moments.

"It's easy." She'd beamed. "We go forwards in the alphabet, and repeat once 26 letters have been gone through, and change every few days going say: by prime-numbers."

Even he had to think for a moment.

"So what: day two is B and day three is C and then?", Derek tried to clarify, making an effort to wrap his head around the way that Stiles' brain sometimes seemed to jump from one place to another.

"And day five is D, day seven is E, et cetera.", his daughter elaborated enthusiastically and so they'd agreed to it (although he was convinced that the pack would be coming to their Alpha for clarification later).

* * *

He'd have scoffed at it, if it hadn't saved her ass mere days into their protective rotation.

Chris had come to fetch both Allison and Stiles for school, effortlessly giving the right answer when questioned about the Double Helix – Derek was convinced that Stiles' Mystery Aficionado had come through and danced a little jig every time she could ask The Question – and had been off with his two pack-members with a nod towards him.

Derek even had to admit that, while his wolf still demanded he be as close to his ma- anchor as possible throughout the day, it was mollified by the cloak-and-dagger approach, the slyness of their m- _pack-member_ and the decoy; it felt a little more secure.

Until Stiles didn't return.

* * *

"Hey Stiles." Melissa looked harried in her usual scrubs, the keys safely encased in her loose fist waiting in front of the old Sedan. "I'm sorry to stress you, but there was a pile-up on 115 – I have just the time to drop you off; you okay with a short-cut?"

She nodded because: of course she was okay with that. Melissa had always been a much-demanded nurse at the hospital and she was damn lucky that there had been someone to pick her up when Harris had mysteriously fallen ill that afternoon; leaving the pack to find an impromptu chauffeur amongst themselves.

Melissa was already pulling out of the parking lot when Stiles' brain caught up with her: "What's the Double Helix?" she asked casually as she snapped her safety-belt across her chest.

"A helix or spiral consisting of two strands in the surface of a cylinder that coil around its axis; especially: the structural arrangement of DNA in space that consists of paired polynucleotide strands stabilized by cross-links between purine and pyrimidine bases."

Stiles' heart stopped.

Because not only did Melissa – or whoever impersonated her – look and act as if that was the actual answer, that was also the verbatim definition of the double-helix, courtesy of Merriam-Webster and the high-schooler knew she was screwed, corkscrewed, duck-vagina-screwed.

She swallowed. "Oh,", she tattled, hoping to keep the nerves out of her voice, "I just wondered. Finstock was honestly exhausting today, kept on jumping from one subject to another."

At this, the alleged nurse smirked a little, shooting her a lookthrough the rear-view-mirror. "Sounds familiar."

And that was that; this was proof, Stiles thought darkly – because while the implication was correct and Stiles herself sometimes jumped from one subject to another, babbling without filter, Melissa would have never called her out on it; never had and probably never would.

Forcing herself to calm down, Stiles reached within herself discreetly starting to tug at the strands that her Spark emitted, collecting it towards her centre and balling it up – she didn't have an actual plan when it came to this; they hadn't assumed that someone would try to outright kidnap Stiles, but she had a vague idea about what she wanted to do.

It was dangerous, because while she'd read about it, she'd never before even _attempted_ it. The literature was a little bit vague about the practice, too, which, seriously, did not help at all – but: hypothetically, she knew what she was doing.

"Yeah,", she agreed instead, smiling a little depreciatively, "you know me. Big mouth gotta be good for something."

'Melissa' didn't answer to that, and made a show of concentrating on traffic that, would they have headed down-town, they would have never encountered – if Stiles would have been waiting for it, this would have been Strike Three, but the imposter had already been outed by Strike One, because Stiles liked her life and didn't necessarily want to put it on the line.

Her spark sizzled within her core, burning brighter than it had in a while, all bunched up inside her – it was waiting, quite literally too, for the magic to happen because all that Stiles had to do now was say the word and it would.

But she wasn't quite ready yet, forced herself into a deep-breathing-mechanism instead, the breath of fire, as it was called in yoga, fuelling her spark just that little bit more – seeing it enlarge in front of her inner eye, _believing in it_.

Taking one last breath, she clutched her school-bag to herself, envisioning her father's front porch – it was closer to where they were currently situated and, with a decisive, mental nod, she closed her eyes.

 _Trag mich fort_

The ball of light within her exploded blindingly outwards, uncoiling from within and siphoning through her pores in a mad rush that left her dizzy and unfocused for the blink of a second before she regained her mental facilities and pictured, with the inborn stubbornness of the Stilinski family, her family home – the doorway that needed a new paint-job, the porch that was practically overgrown by herbs no one had tended to ever since the demise of her mother, the windows to their kitchen.

"Stiles?"

She awoke to the feeling of gravel underneath her, stones digging into her cheek and hands, dirt cloying up her airways – bleary and still dizzy, she willed her eyes to open, glad beyond words to be welcomed by the worried face of her father. Her suicidal plan had worked out.

* * *

As the pack flooded through the door to the Stilinskis' home, Derek didn't even bother to regulate the spike of _worry_ ricocheting through their connections, bouncing and looping back through the small group. Stiles was perched onto the couch in the living room huddled into a camel-hair blanket looking as pale as the day they'd managed to pluck her from Phanes' fingers.

Neither Lydia nor Isaac waited to greet the Sherriff before they dropped their bags and poured onto the couch, next to Stiles – he wasn't surprised to hear his Beta's whine; nor when the rest of the pack followed swift, leaving but him and the Sherriff to look on.

Despite the fact that he felt the need to be as close to her as possible as acutely as any other member of the pack – maybe even more so (because she was **_his_** ) – he stayed where he was; today had been too close for comfort, and John Stilinski, too, was pack. The extended version, maybe, but he still was and it was Derek's mission to soothe him just as it was his obligation to let the pack soothe each other in Stiles' presence.

He didn't ask the man if he was alright – he didn't need to, in order to know that he really wasn't.

Stiles was everything he had and after his daughter had been missing for a month, she'd almost been kidnapped despite their common efforts to avoid such a situation.

"They took Melissa's shape." The Sherriff informed him quietly – Derek didn't doubt that the pack was listening in, but right now he didn't focus on them; he turned to look at John. "I've sent Chris to the hospital; he's found her drugged up in a supply closet. She's alright and I've asked them to get over here – don't really want them apart right now."

As a wolf, and an Alpha, he could sympathise with the feeling of duty – knew, too, that the Sherriff felt responsible for the safety of those he could protect, namely the parents; and especially Melissa. Chris Argent was a hunter and had experience with these kinds of things, knew how to wiggle out of a tight spot, but Scott's mother was a nurse, always had been, and for her to be in danger meant a red flare on the Sherriff's warning board.

Scott mumbled something akin to Thanks, but didn't dare to move from where he'd curled around Stiles' feet.

That night, for the first night, Derek allowed himself to join the pile-up on Stiles' bed. The mattress was barely large enough to fit them all, but the pack was determined and, after a lot of shifting around – this including the bed itself – the seven-head-worth of Betas had managed to somewhat comfortably arrange themselves in the tight space.

Wanting in on the action without taking away too much space – which he would have as a human, given the fact that he was indisputably the tallest – he shifted into his lupine form, shuffling underneath their heads in favour of the pillows which were promptly evicted.

(When the parental triumvirate checked later through the open door, they forewent any comments on the pack's positioning – John Stilinski even went as far as to close it behind them.)

* * *

Could he have gotten away with it, Derek would have constantly orbited around Stiles following the incident; he would have made himself the Sputnik to her earth – but he knew that either Scott or Lydia would have a stern word with him, if the Spark in question herself didn't zap him a hundred ways from Thursday first.

So instead of giving in to the howling and chafing of the wolf in the back of his mind, Derek ran – if he just so happened to patrol her way to school, or even the surroundings of her house, or Scott's, or the hospital's… well, they were all within pack-territory and as a good Alpha it was his duty to uphold security within the boundaries to the best of his abilities.

The graffiti stopped turning up randomly and instead appeared more often than not strategically placed at spots Stiles would frequent on a regular basis: the corner of the grocery shop with the regional produce where she bought the ingredients for meals with her father, the door to her favourite diner with the allegedly best curly fries in the whole county, the bleachers of the field where she attended Lacrosse-practice at least three out of six days a week – the possibilities, it turned out, were just as endless and unpredictable as they had been before; with the difference that she was now a lot more susceptible to fall for the trap.

Not, granted, that it had happened.

After two close calls, the woman in question had adapted the rather inconvenient, but effective, method of sending her friends out to scout the perimeters and report back to her whether or not it would be safe for her.

Despite its' efficiency, however, it did not lessen the aggravation caused by the spell: it came to a head when Stiles had to restrain her bladder for a whole day due to said strategically placed graffiti being found at each and every lavatory – needless to say the Spark was _livid_.

On his part, Derek turned to delivering her preferred produce to her door, some from the grocery shop, some directly from nearby farmers; transforming her lonely evenings of Netflix and Chips into almost-pack-nights with at least Scott and Lydia present, joined irregularly by either Isaac or Allison, sometimes even himself. When they found the graffiti on her jeep after a day at high school he took to picking her up from home and getting her safely to school – Scott usually an additional fixture in the Camaro (the pack's Spark was clever enough to not enter a car alone again).

All in all, he came _close_ to orbiting around her and his wolf seemed to think that his behaviour got (dangerously) close to courting. He had to, repeatedly, explain – to himself! – that this was not the time for such things, that there was danger around them.

And while the animal within him agreed – could smell the tenseness in his ma- anchor and could feel, much more acutely than his human side, the malicious intent that swept through the dark streets of Beacon Hills at night, snarling with the night like a pack of ill-bred Hounds – it was yet convinced that Stiles needed stability, and that they would be the perfect pillar of strength for the spark.

Derek never disagreed, he just… couldn't – not now, not with the way things were.

She still woke from nightmares of her time at The Flittering Fellow and, sometimes, even ignored the calling of sleep altogether.

* * *

It was a Tuesday when they attacked.

A horde of cloaked ghouls swept from the top of Beacon Hills High School like ink-drops – no regard for the non-supernatural, no care for the rest of the world; bottomless pits where their faces should be, barely surmountable in a fight.

Scott swiped panicky at a cloak coming too close to Stiles, placed behind him in a triangle completed by Allison and Isaac, who threw around spells like it was candy, setting aflame those that stood far enough away and pushing those that came close too quickly for either of her defendants to react in an appropriate time-frame away in a gust of wind and power. Derek had swooped in the moment he'd seen the first cloak spill from the roof of the school, but even he was overtaxed with his offenders coming at him three at a time.

Desperately he tore at the cloth, hoping to find a clue in the frenzy on how to unravel the creatures that seemed to multiply by the second.

 _Steht_

Around them, the world froze – the pack included – and Derek couldn't help the frantic uptake of his heartbeat when he realized that, while the ghouls themselves, too, were tied to the spot, Stiles was now alone in the midst of a horde of people, mostly consisting of enemies.

"What is it you want?" she ground out, hand fishing for something in the duffel-bag hanging her side.

Derek had made her carry it in case she needed some of her more extracurricular ingredients while out of the loft – he was very glad, now, he'd imposed his will on her on that point; it might be impractical to carry both duffel and backpack, but she could have her quick fix whenever she needed it.

A dry rasp broke through his reverie and the Alpha was horrified to find that the scraping noise _hurt_ his ears.

 _We need._ -came the answer.

Stiles pulled a disgruntled face, obviously not finding what she was reaching for, but unwilling to tear her head away from her opponents. "Fine then, what do you need?" she spat – her rummaging turned slightly violent.

 _Need the town's Chosen._

"Ugh!" the young woman groaned and didn't even bother to hide her exasperation as she threw both hands in the air. "What is that supposed to fucking mean?!"

A pause in the dialogue suggested that the speaker was not used to this kind of employed language – but then, this was Stiles, she'd grown up at the station surrounded by a well-meaning but ultimately rough crowd; if she really got into it her language could obtain colours that made sailors blush with envy.

 _The Nemeton has chosen._

That he understood – finally – and, yes, it made sense, sort of, that the sole magical creature tied to Beacon Hills sought out what it considered the only other magical source of the place. And while Deaton might have been stronger as a Druid, he was not tied to Beacon Hills; not since the Hale Fire and consequent demise of Alpha Talia Hale, as well as the passing of Alpha Laura Hale.

Stiles hand, once again vanished in her duffel, clenched around something, muscles bunching almost inconceivably.

"So you need me to- what? Talk to a tree? Walk on water? Make it rain men?"

Derek flinched, his face forced into a stony façade by the spell that Stiles had hastily put them under – the spark tended to put herself into situations with her acid tongue; despite the fact that it, too, usually enabled her to suss out a lot more intel from Big Bads than either of their pack could. Something about her tone continuously challenged people, as if she were questioning their whole existence, that made them defensive and – thereby – rather talkative.

 _We need the chosen to unlock the Nemeton._

The spark did not answer and Derek couldn't turn his head to see her face clearly; he thought he could see a furrow, although he couldn't be certain – but he knew, had been told, endlessly, that the Nemeton's powers were not to be trifled with; that there was a reason it had been given to the forest to protect, and not to humanoid creatures.

Finally Stiles found her voice again. "Yeah… well, what do we say to Death?" she paused, pulling a handful of vials out of the duffel-bag. "Not today."

With as much drama as she could muster, she flung the vials out, one into every direction she could see a cloak whipping in the wind.

 _Geht frei_ -the pack moved.

* * *

"So, correct me if I am wrong – and I cannot tell you how much I pray that I am – but the Nemeton is the local power source?" Stiles pulled her hands through her hair. "It's the reason why Beacon Hills actually is a beacon to supernatural creatures, because that stupid fucking tree is putting up Neon-Signals like it's out of style."

The Alpha's mouth pulled tight as he crossed his arms in front of his chest. "The Nemeton also sustains the regional eco-system." He defended. "Its mere presence lowers the likelihood of societal instability, infertility or child-death as well as schizophrenia in humanity alone, just to name a few. And that is ignoring the well-fare of the flora as well as the fauna surrounding Beacon Hills."

Stiles threw her hands up into the air, tilting her head in frustration. "Yes! Forgive me for overlooking the stellar CV of a tree that lives of _dead people_!"

Her screech almost hurt – almost (he had grown accustomed to a certain noise level from Stiles by now). She looked sheepish all the same when he flinched – abruptly halting her tirade and, by proxy, deflating; the wind out of her sails.

"Look, I know it's largely a good thing that somewhere in those woods there's a tree that feeds of the… unalive and severe degenerates of our society -societies, and I also know that it's a good thing that Beacon Hills can be a haven for supernatural creatures. I just-"

"-don't want to be the go-to-person for the carnivorous guardian you have had no idea about until four hours ago?"

The Spark smirked half-heartedly, nodding softly. "Something like that." She answered as she kneaded her fingers through her hair, again. It was getting longer, almost bordering on shoulder-long by now and she'd been whining about getting it cut in the near future – personally he thought it befit her, not too short to look boyish, but not too long to be considering a girly-girl (just the perfect mixture of Stiles).

He shrugged – always bad at comforting people – "It's not that bad." He tried and promptly provoked a cocked brow asking him silently how it could possibly be worse – Derek floundered for a second. "You could already be caught with no idea what's going on." And yeah, that was weak but… it was also true.

The Spark shook her head, turning her head to stare at the far-away ceiling of the loft. "I don't know." She resigned. "This is one serious clusterfuck that we've found ourselves in – once again I might add. I don't… I don't want this… this twisted kind of attention. I'm really fine with fighting on the side-lines…" her sentence tapered off into nothing, leaving Derek with an air of helplessness that he wished he could erase from her; that left him wishing he would not be such a coward and just _embrace_ her; just-

"What's that saying: You can't have your cake and eat it too?"

Stiles snorted – always a weakness for cliché and therefor ultimately bad come-backs; she was surprised to hear one from him (she _had_ rubbed off on him admittedly). He raised his shoulders in a Gallic shrug a 'What-can-you-do'-mine on his face, fighting the urge to initiate some – any – kind of physical contact.

* * *

Stiles dove into research like a woman possessed, Lydia – ever loyal – by her side and came up with-

"Nada. Zilch. Bloody, fucking well nothing." The Spark growled, close to tearing her hair out judged by the forceful grip she had on her locks.

He'd held back for what felt like years now so he didn't even bother to check himself when he reached up to untangle her fingers from the mess that she'd made of her hair, smoothing it over and keeping one of her limbs in his. He wanted to tell her that she needed to be patient, that the Nemeton was an old creature that had been forgotten ages ago. He also knew that this would not help however and so he just squeezed her hand.

"It's like… everything about it has been swallowed up."

Which-

"Actually kind of makes sense." The petite continued, looking at Derek without entirely seeing him; it was, he'd noticed, a unanimous trait the women in his pack shared whenever a case-breaking thought caught their attention.

Her eyes re-focussed. "Because if I were a bunch of megalomaniacs trying to unlock a power-source I had no business tampering with I'd want to keep possible adversaries as blind, dumb and deaf as possible."

Derek sighed, his frustration tainting the sound with a growl – Stiles offered him a commiserating, if half-hearted, smirk.

"We're probably lucky your mother bothered to tell you about it in the first place."

Had it been anyone else, the wolf would have felt odd at the mention of his mother, but Stiles… she had a special place, a pedestal that she'd managed to smuggle through his defences and plonked down in the centre of his everything as if she'd been part of the Sextet to raise the American Flag on Mount Suribachi (he _did_ feel a little conquered). He couldn't complain even if he'd wanted to.

(Not that his wolf had any desire to protest against who it considered its' mate…)

He hummed in response, rubbing his thumb over the raw backs of her knuckles. "Your father called, by the way." He started. "Apparently he hasn't seen neither hide nor hair of you for the last four days…"

And while he held back the 'Care to explain' he knew that she could hear it in his voice – proven right when she pulled a guilty moue, her shoulders pulling up. (But her hand still in his)

"This was kind of… priority?"

She didn't even sound too certain – Derek shook his head, reluctantly letting go of her hand, chasing the warmth of her touch involuntarily. "Your _family_ should be priority, Stiles. You know that."

The thing was – she did; back when he'd brought Cora along despite her not really fitting in with Beacon Hills the back-then-not-yet-spark had been the only one to tolerate the Beta, even if she didn't get along with the abrasive nature of his sister. But never once had she tried to tell Derek off for allowing Cora in.

So… yeah, he was pretty certain that she was the only one who knew of the utmost importance of family, the only one who could comprehend his insistence on it.

Stiles didn't even bother to hide the waft of embarrassment emitting from her as she hunched her shoulders even higher.

"Can't really stay away from the pack either." She answered so softly he wasn't certain he could have picked it up weren't it for his super-human senses.

Well… put like that…

"How about pack-breakfast at yours tomorrow." He proposed then. "I'll buy."—added hastily. "And your father and Melissa and… Chris if he… wants to… can come by too."

The Spark smirked a little brazenly at him. "That hurt didn't it?"

"Shut up."

* * *

Derek made good on his promise and, at the ungodly hour of seven o'clock – sharp – on a freaking Sunday (mostly Stiles' words) knocked on the red front door of the Stilinski home, arms filled with paper-bags.

Stiles was the one to open, dishevelled bedhead, Superman-shirt and sleep shorts complete with woollen over-the-knee-socks indicating that she'd just stood up herself – if the cup of coffee itself wouldn't have sufficed for clarification. She ushered him in without a word, herding him towards the kitchen as if she were the one with canine tendencies instead of him – Derek had learned to know better when it came to a barely-awake-Stiles Stilinski than to attempt anything else but to adhere.

Which was how he found himself turning pancakes not thirty minutes later; the still mostly mute Spark beating the batter while the pack assembled around the table – the parents included, but equally silent. It struck him then that this was… _nice_.

He hadn't had a morning like this in ages; a calm morning preparing breakfast for his pack, all of them assembled, their scent mingling and permeating – he'd missed this.

* * *

The window explodes.

Stood at the stove he barely even has the time to react to the shards sailing through the air, before a shrill, deafening, sound forces him on his knees – hands over his ears. He can't stand the sheer volume of it and it feels as if the glass was trying to get under his skin, into his blood.

But when he forces his eyes to open, he sees that while the pack fares similarly to him, even the humans seem to be impaired – differently maybe, for they are stuck to their seats, frozen mid-movement as if Stiles had commanded them.

His eyes whizz over the crowd, ice settling in his veins and over his heart – because Stiles is nowhere to be seen.

* * *

 _Double Helix_  
www. merriam-webster dictionary/ double %20 helix

 _Trag mich for_ t: German for 'Carry me Away'

 **Reviews are love**


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